Peter Ridsdale's emergence as the buyer of Plymouth Argyle has stirred things up rather. Paul Buttivant, a rival bidder for the club, has engaged a detective agency to look into the circumstances that have led to the former Leeds chairman being the preferred bidder for Argyle's football operation. Buttivant claims he was frozen out of talks to buy the club and has now called in Xfor, a private-security firm run by Parachute Regiment veterans, to investigate events at Home Park over last season and this summer.

Digger revealed last November that Ridsdale had been a regular in Argyle's directors' box. He has since been the sole constant at Home Park, having been appointed as football consultant on 30 December last year.

In February he was acting chairman and chief executive when the club made their "notice of intention to appoint" Brendan Guilfoyle as administrator. When he was appointed on 4 March, Ridsdale was retained to run the football business. Now he is poised to take over for £1. "Brendan Guilfoyle, Peter Ridsdale and [Ridsdale's co-bidder] Kevin Heaney should realise we are not going to go away," said Buttivant. "We call on the administrator to communicate with us about our open and transparent proposal."

Guilfoyle did not return Digger's call on Tuesday, but he has previously stated that he knew nothing of Heaney's intention to hand over the football operations to Ridsdale for £1 until a week before it was announced. For his part Ridsdale describes himself as a "reluctant" and "transient" owner whose sole intention is to save the club.

Whiter than white

Fifa's difficulties with corruption in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process have led the International Olympic Committee to take preventative steps ahead of its 2018 Winter Olympic host-city decision in Durban.

Denis Oswald, a Swiss IOC member, has declined to take part in the voting process since the International Rowing Federation of which he is president has received sponsorship from Korean Air. The airline is also a major commercial partner of Pyeongchang's bid, which is favourite to win today, at the third time of asking.

Another potential link, involving the Princess Royal's daughter Zara Phillips, has not been deemed a conflict. Phillips, a successful three-day eventer, is sponsored by Samsung, whose former chief executive Kunhee Lee is South Korea's IOC member and will appear on Pyeongchang's speakers' platform during the hustings. But the IOC does not believe that connection compromises Princess Anne, the British Olympic Association president and IOC member, and she will fully take part in the 2018 vote.

First for Derby and Glick

Tom Glick turned back the clock several decades last week by becoming the first foreign member to attend a Football Association's council meeting since the days when representatives of Commonwealth countries had places on that august body. The Derby County chief executive is an American, and is believed to be the first from the US ever to have sat on the council. But in a forum where minority faces are few and far between, Glick alone will not satisfy reformists' hopes of more diversity in the FA council.

Meanwhile, the FA gave a reflection of its delight at having struck sponsorship agreements with Vauxhall and Budweiser for the England team and FA Cup respectively. Stuart Turner's appointment as group commercial director after 15 months in that role in an "acting" capacity demonstrates the support he has of the chairman, David Bernstein, and Alex Horne, the general secretary.

Blatter meets Mugabe

Sepp Blatter took a fortnight off his normally hectic globe-trotting schedule after he was voted in for a fourth presidential term on 1 June. He returned to the road a fortnight ago, heading to the US for the Gold Cup semi-finals and final before making his way to Germany for the women's World Cup. After sprinkling his stardust on those tournaments, where else could he conceivably next alight? Absolutely right: Zimbabwe, for talks with Robert Mugabe. Fifa will now hand over £930,875 to football institutions in a land where the game is gripped by match-fixing scandals.